


Circle Dance

by Rod



Series: Snapshots [1]
Category: The OC
Genre: Multi, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-09
Updated: 2013-04-09
Packaged: 2017-12-08 01:14:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/755267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rod/pseuds/Rod
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Luke, Seth and Ryan consider each other, with varying degrees of success.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Circle Dance

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer:** They belong to Josh Schwartz and Fox. You can tell; I would have been nicer to them.
> 
> The stories in this series were written more or less in reverse order. This makes for certain inconsistencies between them, which I blame on the drink — if you notice them, you haven't drunk enough.

Ryan confuses Luke.

He's from Chino, damn it. That means he's poor, stupid, lazy, unreliable, and out to screw the rest of the world for everything he thinks it owes him, right?

Wrong. OK, so if you discount the fact that the Cohens pay for everything Ryan is poor, but that just means that he pays attention to money. He doesn't worship it or ignore it, he's just careful with it and proud enough not to want charity. He works for what he gets, an idea that Luke has belatedly realised he only thought he knew.

And Ryan may not have been to as good a school as Harbor but he's not stupid either. Well, maybe in the sense of starting a fight with three guys bigger than he is, but that's more bravery than stupidity, something that Luke appreciates, and it's not like Ryan makes a habit of it. Not without good reason, anyway.

That's the core of what bothers Luke about Ryan. Ryan is always there to support people when they really need it, friends or not. He's been a brother to Seth since Luke first saw them together. He's there for Marissa every time she falls apart. Hell, he's even been there for Luke when Luke was nothing but an asshole to him.

Ryan is, and Luke can't believe he's even thinking this, Ryan is honourable. And it's not some head-in-the-clouds idealism that gets him shot down at every turn, it's not something that everyone openly applauds and secretly snickers at, it's something real. Something selfless that makes Luke realise how selfish he usually is, and that's not a comfortable thought to live with.

***

Luke confuses Seth.

Seth thought he knew the arrogant asshole who has made his life a misery since first grade. He's a self-absorbed dumb jock who only cares about his image, he dated Marissa purely because she looked good on his arm, and he never does anything for anyone who isn't part of his in crowd. Except he isn't, and he doesn't.

Luke could have let Ryan take the fall for the show house burning down, but he stepped forward in front of everyone looking almost as scared as Ryan, and Seth's not sure he's even seen Luke look scared before, never mind that scared. And when Ryan's mom started making a scene at the Casino night, Seth was ready to tear himself away from Summer to help, but Luke got there first.

It goes on. Seth has to accept that Luke isn't as dumb as rocks after Ryan told him Luke did most of their shared assignment. No matter how much Seth gloated about it at the time, when Luke actually cried over breaking up with Marissa he showed that he could be sensitive, even if Marissa couldn't see it. Luke even managed to get more annoyingly hyper than Seth at the Rooney concert, and that's just not the boy that Seth has known and hated all these years. Also kind of upsetting to find out what having someone that hyper around is like, given that the someone in question is usually Seth, but that's getting off the point.

Seth really hates to admit this, but Luke is turning into a person. Seth has invested so much in hating Luke — no, in hating Luke's image, and now it turns out that Luke isn't that image at all. And if Seth's been wrong about that all this time, what else has he got wrong about Luke?

***

Seth confuses Ryan.

Seth's the poor little rich geek. Born into money, he fits the image of the "idle rich" as well as anyone else in Newport. Better than most, even; Seth has admitted he wants to be a writer, sitting around all day doing the oh-so-strenuous work of polishing sentences for his novel.

Yet in the middle of all this privilege, what Ryan actually walked in on was a lonely boy who made room in his life for Ryan without so much as a hint of complaint. A boy who handed him his trust the moment they met and didn't so much invite as absorb him into the family. A boy who by all accounts had a blazing row with his own mother when she wasn't so sure about Ryan, something that Ryan never has and never will blame her for.

Seth is a far cry from the sort of spoiled only child Ryan imagined filled Newport Beach's expensive houses. He's open, smart, and at least as honest as anyone else Ryan has known, which isn't saying a lot really but Ryan means it as a high compliment. He can be a total dork, but Ryan has to admit that Chino isn't exactly a dork-free zone. He is a reliable friend, and that's something Ryan has known since forever that money can't buy.

Ryan finds the whole situation more than a little weird. Seth should have been someone that Ryan looked down on as spoiled and worthless, or at best put up with as yet another trial in his life. Instead, Seth is someone Ryan looks up to, someone who cares, someone that Ryan has been trying to be like his whole life. Having that someone claim you as a brother, well, Ryan can't put into words what that means to him.

***

Seth gets Ryan.

It took him a little while, but Seth completely gets where Ryan's coming from. Ryan's always had to be the adult in the family. Not just the man, Ryan's mom is flaky enough that Ryan has had to be the one taking care of her and his brother, even though he's the youngest. It's not a job that he should have had to do, but he's the only one who would. It gives Seth the heebie-jeebies just thinking about it.

That's the attitude that Ryan carries through life now. He's the White Knight, the one who cares for and protects others, even the ones who totally don't deserve it. He puts up with more emotional fallout from Marissa than any man ought to have to handle not because he loves her but because she needs it. He held Luke together after he got shot not because he likes him but because he needed it. Hell, if Oliver hadn't been such an evil, manipulative little slimeball out to get him, Seth's willing to bet that Ryan would have bent over backwards to help him too.

Living with the Cohens, having a family that knows the meaning of the word "love", that's thrown Ryan a bit. Now he's got Sandy, Kirsten and Seth all defending him every time something goes wrong, and none of them (now Seth's had a choice word or two with his mom) putting conditions on that support, Ryan doesn't seem sure what to do. Seth has a suspicion that for all his calm exterior, Ryan doesn't really believe that he deserves the family that have taken him in. It's like Ryan lives to help others, but never expects anyone to be there to help him.

That's something Seth intends to fix.

***

Ryan gets Luke.

When they first met, Luke was happily drifting along in a well-ploughed furrow. He was the King Jock, complete with trophy girlfriend and on the way to a future of white picket fences and 2.4 children. Ryan isn't particularly proud to admit that he hated the boy in that picture, falling for the lie every bit as much as Luke had.

Because Luke is much more than that. Ryan's gotten to see bits of the real Luke underneath the comfortable mask, and he's a pretty cool guy. He did break out of the mould when Ryan challenged him, did start thinking of others and not just himself. He actually started thinking of Marissa as a person, not just as something Luke needed to complete his set of status symbols. He was there to give a hand unasked when Ryan really needed it.

And he accepted Ryan's hand when he really needed it. When his dad's secret tore the dream that he'd been living into little pieces and Luke was hurting as much as Ryan has ever seen anyone hurt, Luke accepted his friendship. Ryan knows just how hard that is, just how much of a risk it was for Luke to trust someone, anyone, while everything was falling apart around him. Ryan's been there, scared to death that every hand held out to him was just raised to slap him. Surviving that, coming out of it a better person, well Luke's grown in Ryan's estimation, something he hadn't thought possible when they had their first fight.

The thing is, Luke doesn't seem to know how to be himself now that he doesn't have the image to hide behind. He throws himself into everything that comes along, desperate to find a new mask for his life. He doesn't seem to get yet that Luke Ward is the kind of smart, good guy that doesn't need a mask.

That's something Ryan can change.

***

Luke gets Seth.

For all the intelligence packed into that curly head, Seth Cohen is not a confident person. He never has been, and Luke has to hold up his hand and admit that he helped Seth into that corner. He was one of the people who labelled Seth a geek, and helped to chip away at his self-confidence until Seth knew he was at the bottom of the heap.

It's no surprise that Seth is lonely. An only child (and no matter how often Luke has wished for peace and quiet, he wouldn't trade his little brothers for anything) and a social outcast, Seth has pretty much never had friends. Even Marissa ignored him, and she has lived next door for their whole lives.

If Luke needed more proof it's the way that Seth clings to Ryan whenever he isn't making a complete idiot of himself with the girls. They're always together, and Luke's spotted that it's always Seth turning up where Ryan is. Seth never turned up anywhere before, after all, and being with Ryan certainly gets Seth noticed.

Luke's more or less convinced that Summer only started hanging with Seth because of Ryan, for instance. She still has a habit of treating him like a fashion accessory rather than a person, which wouldn't upset Luke so much if he didn't see echoes of himself and Marissa there. He knows now what a hollow time that really was for both of them, and he hates to think that Seth sees it as an improvement.

Once upon a time, Luke wouldn't have given a damn about Seth Cohen being lonely. Once upon a time, Luke wasn't painfully aware of just what that feels like, and just how much it's his fault that Seth never had a chance to be himself.

The very least Luke can do for him is to fix that.


End file.
